


Home Made

by micehell



Category: Velvet Goldmine
Genre: Fluff, Insulin alert, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-11-16
Updated: 2008-11-16
Packaged: 2017-11-12 00:17:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/484517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/micehell/pseuds/micehell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It wasn't a skill Arthur had ever had.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home Made

Note: Yes, I know homemade is one word, but ~~I'm a pun addict~~ it's a play on words, so deal. ;)

~*~  
It wasn't a skill Arthur had ever had, nor had he particularly wanted it. When you're employed as a reporter at a large city paper, it's not something you needed on your CV. When he'd lived alone, it was just easier to buy the damn things at the bakery.

He looked at the mess his kitchen was in and thought longingly about the bakery again. The blond wood counters he'd so admired when they bought the place were now white beneath a layer of flour, like a pale corpse with bleeding wounds of melting chocolate and half-softened butter dotting it. The stove was still smoking somewhat, and the one pan of cookies that he'd _totally_ burned had left scorch marks on the once pristine silver of its finish. He refused to look down and see what the floor looked like.

Trying to focus on the positive, he looked at the cookies that hadn't actually burned -- at least not _completely_ \-- artfully arranged on a plate to make it look like there were more than twelve of them. Out of a batch of sixty, which was sad, but as the twelve had pretty much been a fluke, Arthur wasn't complaining. About that, at least.

Scraping a bit of scorch marked he'd missed off one of the cookies, Arthur sighed, wondering if he should have at least gone with a pre-made dough. He shook his head at the thought, for once not caring that he was reacting outwardly to an internal dialog, mind too caught up in his reasons why the cookies had to be homemade. And, really, if the cookies had come out too nice, there was no way anyone who knew him would believe they were his, and after three years of watching Arthur _not_ bake, Curt certainly knew him.

Knew him in a way Arthur both admired and resented. Admired because it was a skill he struggled with, and resented because… it was a skill he struggled with. Hell, maybe he was just an open book, his emotions broadcasting to everyone, but he didn't think so. Curt seemed to be the only one who could usually tell just by looking at him what his mood was, who seemed to know how to get him out of his own head when things got too bad, and who always gave back as good as he got when the bad moods went vicious, and the words he only sometimes meant to say became equally so. Maybe it was just that Curt was the only one who really cared, but it was still hard for Arthur to take sometimes, the seeming ease Curt had in knowing what to do to make Arthur feel better, when he was constantly having to _guess_ how to return the favor. He just hoped he'd guessed right now.

It was stupid to fret over it, he definitely knew that at least. Curt would have been happy with the store-bought cookies, a lifetime of lowered expectations setting a standard even the clueless could meet. Arthur had wondered if that had been Brian's magic for Curt, that perhaps he'd been the first that had actually tried to offer more than Curt was willing to accept. But even if Curt had been willing to accept less, and regardless of what Brian might or might not have done, Arthur wanted to do this right. To do it right because it was the kind of thing you did when your friends were ill, let alone what you did for… well, the only person in the world he'd have destroyed his beautiful kitchen for.

The bedroom was silent when he pushed open the door, but even though Curt's eyes were closed, Arthur could tell he was awake by the fact that he lying completely on his side of the bed, arms neatly folded across his stomach. Even the bruising on his body wouldn't have stopped a sleeping Curt from spreading out across the bed, like some form of somnolent goldfish intent on expanding to fill all available space. Sometimes even the unavailable space, as the man who _tried_ to share his bed could readily attest.

Arthur sat on the bed beside him, taking care not to shake it too much. He set the cookies on the nightstand, shoving aside the kewpie dolls that marked it as Curt's. "How are you feeling?"

Curt didn't open his eyes, but he turned his head slightly as if to bring Arthur in sight. "Like a planet hit me, then turned around and did it again."

"So better then."

That got him a laugh, and then a groan as the movement pulled at Curt's bruised ribs. It hadn't been a planet, and it had only hit him once, but the cab had been moving fast enough that even a glancing blow had sent Curt flying, his landing doing more damage than the initial impact had. Arthur was careful of the scrapes on Curt's face as he leaned down for a kiss.

Curt opened his eyes at that, watching Arthur with a hopeful gaze, lips parting in invitation. But Arthur pulled back, wanting to take what was on offer, but still too leery of causing pain to be comfortable with more than chaste kisses. He went for distraction, taking a cookie and holding it out to Curt. "I made you something."

Another laugh answered that, equally full of sarcasm and glee. "Yeah, I know. I could… smell it."

But Arthur didn't have to try to defend his questionable skills in baking, because Curt ate the cookie with relish, not even hesitating over the burned parts. He licked his fingers, chasing crumbs, smiling as he said, "Just like my mother's."

Which normally wasn't an association that would make Arthur happy, far too aware of what Curt's mother was like, but then he himself was intimately familiar with that bastard blend of love and hate that even just poor parents could breed. And maybe he had to work to understand Curt's moods sometimes, but he recognized this one easily enough. Whatever memory of his mother the cookies had invoked was a comforting one and Curt's pleasure in the gift was real.

It was Curt's smile, that held nothing but happiness, and the knowledge that he'd done well with his gift, regardless of the mess he'd made, that relaxed his care enough to let Curt kiss him as he wanted, deep and sweetened with chocolate and need.

He still had to fight not to pull back when his own pale skin stood out stark against the bruises pressed against him, but he could let himself follow Curt's lead in this. Could let himself be pulled onto their bed, Curt twining around him, filling up the lonely spaces that had been hollowed by fear and protectiveness. Let himself hold and be held, comforting and comfort.

When touch morphed to something else, he stilled, mouth forming the words to stop it, but Curt licked those away as well, and Arthur lost the will to protest as long, string-callused fingers deftly worked their cocks free, deftly stroked them, together; one hand, one goal, one mingled breath as they came, one right after the other. Arthur shuddered through it, face pressed into the curve of Curt's neck, breathing in the smell of vanilla and chocolate mixed with sex and Curt.

His brain was randomly firing as it always did after sex, stray thoughts that could sometimes probably flummox a Freudian playing like movies behind eyes that couldn't stay open against post-coital glow. _The nightmare mess in the kitchen, a fear that now he'd associate cookies with sex and start getting totally inappropriate responses in bakeries, Curt's hand right there, right there_ , and he could feel himself drifting towards sleep, the waking dreams fading with him.

Even with the bruises and the mess and less-than-stellar cookies, it had been a good day, and Arthur fell into contented sleep with cookie crumbs and Curt filling the bed around him.

/story


End file.
